North Carolina and Montana Just Lost Access to Pornhub
Samantha Cole Samantha Cole
Jan 2, 2024 at 11:22 AM

Happy new year to people in Montana and North Carolina, who just joined a growing list of states that now require identification to view porn, or are blocked from viewing it altogether, as new age verification laws went into effect on January 1.

A year ago, Louisiana paved the way for a wave of age verification laws that target porn sites; eight states have since passed copycat age verification laws of their own. Montana’s SB 544 and North Carolina’s HB 8 are nearly identical to Louisiana’s and other states’ laws. The laws’ text make unsubstantiated claims about the addictive potential of pornography and its apparent harms to viewers’ health. North Carolina’s law was passed as part of unrelated legislation that adds a computer science course to high school graduation requirements.

Rather than try to make its users jump through hoops to view its content, Pornhub’s parent company has blocked viewers in Montana and North Carolina altogether, as it has in other states with similar legislation. Anyone in those states visiting an Aylo site, which includes Pornhub, Redtube, Brazzers, YouPorn, and more, is now met with a video and text message from the network delivered by performer Cherie DeVille, explaining that the site is blocked from view in their state.

“As you may know, your elected officials in your state are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website. While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, giving your ID card every time you want to visit an adult platform is not the most effective solution for protecting our users, and in fact, will put children and your privacy at risk.” DeVille says in a video message.

"The safety of our users is one of our biggest concerns. We believe that the best and most effective solution for protecting children and adults alike is to identify users by their device and allow access to age-restricted materials and websites based on that identification," DeVille continues. "Until a real solution is offered, we have made the difficult decision to completely disable access to our website in your state."

The message is similar to ones visible in other states where similar age verification laws have been enacted in the last year, including Virginia, Arkansas, and Mississippi. Pornhub sued Texas in September before its age verification law went into effect, which requires porn sites to add a “Texas Health and Human Services Warning” on their websites in 14-point font or larger font, in addition to age verification. A district judge agreed to block the law from being enacted as scheduled on September 1, but Texas asked a Fifth Circuit panel to lift the injunction in October.

Visiting xHamster, another porn tube site, in North Carolina or Montana requires biometric identity verification through third-party service Yoti — the same service the site uses in Utah, following the enactment of the state’s own age verification law.

Critics of these laws say they’re too vague to be useful, and will only have a chilling effect on porn sites that do have good moderation practices, while pushing people to use less responsible sites or use virtual private networks (VPNs) to make it seem like they’re in a different location.

In North Carolina, Senator Amy Galey, who pushed for the law, told local news outlet WRAL that the law "wasn't crafted" to target social media sites. “We’re not going after the risqué and the R rated. But we need some kind of firewall for hard core pornography.” Despite helping pass a law that will change the internet for her constituents, Galey may not realize that Twitter, for example, is absolutely bursting with pornography and requires no identity verification, and Facebook and Instagram send tens of thousands of reports of child sexual abuse material to reporting agencies every year. But these are platforms where politicians and lobbying groups do their recruiting and fundraising, and are rarely targeted in the same way that pornographic sites are.

As was the case after Utah enacted its porn age verification law, in the last 24 hours, Google searches for “VPN” are spiking in Montana and North Carolina, as people look for easy workarounds to the blocks.

Source and references: https://www.404media.co/north-carolina-mont...ub-blocked-vpn/

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